Icewind Dale II Designer Diary #6

Grab Bag: Designer Chris Avellone tells us about a cool magical item, new spell icons, the game's progress at Black Isle and more.

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I rarely speak with Jonric. This is nothing personal. It is not because I dislike Jonric, though I suppose if I spent long periods of time around him, the possibility is there.

Before I waste your time by describing what's going on with Icewind Dale 2, here's a new item. It's very powerful. It may sate your hunger... but only for a while. It's called the Arc of Gold. It's no Belib's torch, but you know what? WHEN YOU SHOOT AN ORC IN THE BRAIN WITH THIS, THEY DON'T GET BACK UP. That's right.

It can be argued that the Arc of Gold and its sister, the Mithral Arc, brought about the end of the dwarven-elvish alliance in the North many years past, and led to the destruction of the Severed Hand and the fall of Dorn's Deep. Many tragedies have occurred around these two items, and many are the deaths they caused although no arrow was ever shot from them.

At the height of the dwarven-elvish alliance in the North, a disagreement arose between the two races over the matter of trading enchanted weapons to the men of the south, who were beginning to establish a foothold in the North. The dwarves were of the opinion that the many great works that had been built through the joint efforts of the dwarves and elves should be offered up to man and the profits used to fill the coffers of both races. This suggestion was not well-received by the elves nor by their leader, the arch-mage Larrel, and the matter was quickly dropped.

However, when the Arc of Gold, one of the items fashioned jointly by dwarven and elven weaponsmiths was found in the hands of an orcish war party not long after the debate in the alliance councils, the elves accused the dwarves of selling the weapons to the goblinoids out of greed. The dwarves, insulted, broke the shafts of their hammers in the middle of the council and broke talks with the elves, returning to their halls in Dorn's Deep and never speaking to them again. The two races, now divided, were soon swallowed by the Dark Horde that was devouring the North beneath its banner.

At the time of the fall of the Severed Hand, the Arc of Gold was mounted within the halls of Severed Hand as a reminder of the dwarven treachery and dwarven greed. When the Severed Hand fell, the Arc of Gold silently watched as the goblinoids tore apart the elvish defenders and laid waste to tower after tower, until the elvish archmage Larrel, in a desperate measure, brought about the Mythal cataclysm that sealed the fate of the Severed Hand once and for all.

When the Mythal was cast, the Arc of Gold vanished from the halls of the Severed Hand and has not been seen since... until now.

The Arc of Gold has some sweet damage and attack bonuses, no doubt about it. Okay, that was a stopgap measure. Here's the really cool stuff. New spell icons. Oh, yeah, buckle up, baby. But first, an introduction:

"We have new spell icons. They are done by someone they keep in a basement named Brian Menze. They are very cool. They make me actually want to cast Remove Fear on something rather than Fireball. Fireball's cool, too, though."

Let me show you some spell icons:

Here is Remove Fear. Take a good look at it, and you will know true fear.

What's that, little spell icon? What?

No. No kits for you.

NO.

Brother-? What do you-?

Oh, great. It's Emotion: Fear. Just what we need.

I think Emotion: Fear has the right idea. Let's check out those HOT fire spell icons:

Now that I've given you an item and some of the new icons, let's take a detour into the bowels of some ever-amusing development humor.

"The situation here is tense. Really tense. Our programmers are hammering away at bugs, smashing them away, driving them back. Bernie, our lead programmer, is wearing a strange smile on his face. EXCEPT THAT IT'S NOT HIS OWN FACE. He skinned it from one of the junior programmer who couldn't run fast enough. I haven't heard from Kevin Osburn, our line producer in days, so I stole his chair and his video card. Darren Monahan (young, upcoming producer) and Doug Avery (old, not-quite-so-upcoming producer) have started to dress in black robes and conduct horrific rites in the lunchroom. Josh Sawyer has been reduced to saying nothing but "kits, my precious kits," and sobbing quietly before he was crushed by a stack of Faiths and Avatars."

Designers and Quality Assurance are also smashing bugs and jumping up and down on the game like a piece of Samsonite luggage. They tell me Targos and Kuldahar are broken, but I laugh, and say THEY are the ones who are broken. Then I throw pens at their lying heads. Artists are making icons. Cool icons. And cool portraits. What you do with these portraits and icons is up to you."

Anyway, it's cool to be afraid now. Because then you can cast Remove Fear on yourself.

I'm done. Until next time, when my designer diary rights are revoked, this is Chris Avellone, "keeping it real."